With Great Cameos Come Great Nostalgia: My Unpopular Thoughts on “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”

I finally had the opportunity to see Spiderman: No Way Home. The film hit theaters six months ago, but since I have a) small kids; b) a wife who actually likes these kinds of movies; and c) no time to get away for a movie date with her, I resigned myself to small-screen viewing. I even waited until I was able to get the film for free from my local library (support your local libraries, gang).

Finally, after months of anticipation and trying very hard to avoid major plot spoilers (I couldn’t avoid them all, so I knew about most of the cameos already), I sat down and watched the movie.

And it was…fine?

MCU Later

I remember seeing Iron Man in the theater back in 2008 with two good friends of mine. The three of us absolutely geeked out when Nick Fury stepped out of the shadows and said the words “Avengers Initiative,” and I was an MCU mark ever since. Even the Marvel films that weren’t quite as good (sorry, Thor: The Dark World and Iron Man 3) were still great because I was 100% bought into the epic plotline. Captain America was my guy (#TeamCapForLife), and every new film that filled out the sprawling Infinity Saga was an absolute joy, culminating in Avengers: Endgame and one of my favorite images in all of cinematic history.

Once Endgame closed the book on the main storyline I’d been following, I started to lose interest in what came next. I understand, times change and actors move on, so you rotate in new characters with new histories and plot lines. But when you couple the loss of iconic characters like Iron Man and Captain America with the introduction of new narrative threads that seem to be written to make ideological statements rather than tell good stories, my interest really starts to wane. I watched the direct-to-streaming Black Widow; it was decent. I enjoyed some of the Disney+ Marvel series like WandaVision, Loki, and Hawkeye. (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier should have been great, but it really left me cold. Plus Bucky should get the shield; I won’t budge on that fact.)

In other words, Marvel Phase Four doesn’t really do it for me. I almost watched Shang-Chi, and I heard it was pretty good, but I just never cared enough to commit for 2 hours. I passed on Eternals because I heard enough about the plot and content that I knew it would just tick me off. From what I gather, Doctor Strange 2 is weird and dark and could be fun, but making Wanda OP and focusing the whole plot on America Chavez is kind of a buzzkill. I’m not even going to bother with Love and Thunder, because Jane Foster as “The Mighty Thor” was a stupid idea when the comics rolled it out in 2015 and it’s stupid now. Thor is a name, not a title.

Okay, okay, enough blather. That’s a long way of saying, when it comes to the Spider-man films, I consider Tom Holland’s Peter Parker as the last of the old guard. I like his performances and thought they stood up to (if not exceeded) the best of the other two big-screen adaptations. Since I found myself ready to move on from pursuing any new Marvel entertainment, I figured No Way Home would be the last Marvel movie I’d actively seek out to watch. I’m not saying I’ll boycott future Marvel films; I just don’t expect I’ll care much either way. Plus, it sounded like NWH was universally adored, so I’d be going out with a bang.

Which is why No Way Home ended up falling short of my (overly-inflated) expectations.

[SPOILERS HENCEFORTH–YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.]

Your Friendly Neighborhood Teenaged Melodrama

The first half of No Way Home was okay but I found myself siding with Doctor Strange–I was getting increasingly exasperated with Peter. So much of the narrative’s first half falls into the trope of “complication caused by grown[ish] people not having a simple conversation”–in this case, Peter not realizing he could reach out to the MIT Admissions office and plead for his friends’ case. I know, I know: he’s just a teenager, he’s got big stuff going on, cut him some slack. But that’s just the thing: I found myself becoming frustrated with the character and realized it’s another case in which I’m shifting from sympathizing with a story’s young protagonist to siding with the mentor/adult. Middle-age comes at you fast, man.

I was also annoyed by Peter’s response to otherworldly supervillains being “I can fix them!” There’s so much about these people that Peter didn’t know, but his naïve assumption that they just needed rehabilitation or a helping hand was sweet but pretty stupid on the face of it.

And yes, I realize that the narrative beats of the movie essentially justified Peter’s idealism, but that made zero sense to me. Flint Marko? Stupidity and bad luck turned him into Sandman; he could be turned around, sure. I’ll even buy Doc Ock’s restoration, since it was established that he was being mind-controlled by the tentacles. But Norman Osbourne? No. Norman Osbourne became the Green Goblin because the goblin was always inside him, even before he injected himself with serum. His greed, his lust for power, his willingness to cut corners and succeed at all cost were part of his character. The serum only magnified it.

Peter’s (and May’s) apparent belief that there’s no such thing as an irredeemable bad guy is short-sighted and foolhardy. Hey Pete, remember a guy named Thanos? Big, purple, wrinkly chin, Malthusian maniac committing planetary genocide across the galaxy? That experience alone should have showed Peter Parker that some guys just can’t be reached. And as a result of Peter and Co.’s foolish idealism, they put the lives of everyone in their condo building (and the wider city) at risk, and May is killed by Green Goblin as a result.

Finally–FINALLY–things start getting interesting when the other Spider-men enter the narrative.

Web-Slinger, Perspective-Bringer

I finally started enjoying the movie in earnest when Ned opened some portals (never mind that this is a skill that took students of the Ancient One concerted effort and practice to learn and yet Ned pulls a “Rey” and derps his way into it) and pulls in Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker from the Sam Raimi trilogy and Andrew Garfield’s Peter from the Amazing Spiderman films. Having these two actors inhabit these characters and interact with each other and Tom Holland was an absolute breath of fresh air. Their comedic banter and brotherly teasing/encouragement made me wish the trio were onscreen for most of the film instead of the last 45 minutes or so.

The unexpected benefit of bringing in these two alternate versions of Spiderman (whom I’ll call TM and AG for simplicity’s sake) is that the narrative deepened from a simple story about rehabilitating multiversal miscreants to wrestling with the impact of loss, regret, and vengeance. TM’s Peter talks about carrying the weight of Uncle Ben’s death for years before making peace with it, while AG’s Peter admits that he let his anger at the loss of Gwen Stacy get the better of him, leading him down a darker path. They each warn Tom Holland’s (TH’s) Peter of the dangers he faces in the wake of Aunt May’s murder.

Each of the alternate Spider-men also got a particular moment to shine. For AG, it was the mid-air rescue of MJ, which provided a surprisingly poignant moment in which he lowers her to the ground and asks if she’s okay. Then MJ sees that AG-Peter’s eyes are filling with tears and she asks if *he’s* okay. That one got me, gang. Andrew Garfield brought more emotional weight in that moment than most of the movie had up to that point. For TM, it was the climax of the final fight, as the TH-Peter was about to bring the Green Goblin’s glider down on him (one-upping the Goblin’s previous onscreen death by turning mere inaction into murderous intention). At the last moment, TM’s Peter slides in between the two and grabs the glider to prevent the death-blow (perhaps intended to be in a visual echo/counterpoint to the shocking violence of John Walker in FATWS). TM-Peter talks the new Spider-man down, convincing him not to seek bloody vengeance and allowing for Norman Osbourne to get an antidote serum (again, lame) and be sent home.

In the end, I think what I loved most about having Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield reprise their incarnations of the web-slinger was that they brought the element that Tom Holland’s Peter Parker most clearly lacked: perspective and experience. They each portrayed Spider-man as an actual man. Those versions of Spider-man seemed to have something interesting to say.

Don’t Look Back–You Can Never Look Back

Look, I can almost hear you screaming at your screen right now, “That’s the whole point about Spider-man!!! He’s a teenager grappling with superpowers!!!” And I agree. That’s what I’m trying to say with this review: I enjoy Spider-man as a comics/film character just fine, but I just can’t relate to him in his current incarnation because I want him to grow up and he’s not doing that in the MCU films thusfar.

Perhaps, you could argue, the resolution of the film–current-era Peter tells Doctor Strange to cast the worldwide forgetting spell, everyone in the wrong universe is sent home, and Peter accepts total relational isolation as a sort of penance for his mistakes–that will force Peter to grow up as a character. It’s possible. That could be interesting, if written well. I just don’t know if it will be, with the current trend of heavy-handed messaging in MCU Phase Four. (Plus, we all know that even though Holland signed on for another trilogy, at least one of those films will be a vehicle for introducing Miles Morales as his eventual replacement.)

In the end, here’s my final analysis of Spider-man: No Way Home: it’s a decently-good Marvel movie that leans heavily on nostalgia, but I think I might just be aging out of the MCU fanbase…and that’s okay. If the film teaches us anything, it’s that you can’t live in the past; at some point, you need to find closure so you can move on to other adventures.

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But hey, I could be completely off-base, with this overly-wordy and possibly terrible take. Feel free to tell me all the ways I’m mistaken in the com-box below, as long as you 1) watch your language, and 2) be respectful. (My com-box, my rules.) I look forward to reading your roasts.

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#Blogtober2021 Day 10: Capsule Movie Review of “Wonder Woman 1984”

You may be thinking, “Didn’t this movie come out months ago?”

Yes it did. Welcome to the life of a parent of three littles. We…don’t go to the movie theater much. So my wife and I just finished this one (split over two nights) on DVD a few minutes ago, and I figured I’d give you my raw initial reaction. Ready?

It was fine.

I heard several commentators online talk about how bad and disappointing and woke the movie was, so my expectations were pretty low. But it was fine.

Some of the fight choreography was super-hokey. Some of the dialogue was clunky. The transparent painting of Maxwell Lord as the comics version of DJT was eyeroll-inducing. But the premise was just goofy enough to work, some of the ideas (e.g. truth being essentially the greatest good) were really nice, and the tender father-son moment at the end made me tear up, which was unexpected.

When it comes right down to it, the film stands or falls on the performances of the leads, and Gal Gadot is just excellent as Wonder Woman. She elevates the material. And despite the strained justification for his return, Chris Pine is great on screen and he and Gadot have excellent chemistry.

So yeah. If you haven’t seen it yet but are still planning to, it’s worth a look if you go in expecting it to be middling at best.

I know that sounds like damning with faint praise. It’s really not. I just think I’m at the point where these movies don’t hype me up like they used to. That peaked with Endgame and everything since has been “yeah, okay, sure.” It’s not life-changing. It’s amusement. A-muse. Says it right there in the etymology of the word itself: don’t think to hard about such things.

Anyway, that’s what I got: WW84 is an imperfect but entertaining popcorn movie that benefits from the viewer expecting little and being pleasantly surprised.

Agree? Disagree? Comment below.

“Let Them Fight!”: The4thDave Reviews “Godzilla vs. Kong”

Dramatic Recreation of Title Character to Avoid Copyright Infringement (Hi, Legendary Pictures!)
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

We have established already that I’m a mark for Godzilla movies, so I pretty much knew going in what to expect and what not to expect. When you purchase a ticket for a kaiju movie, you’re not looking for deep characterization, complex or thoughtful plotting, or meditative storytelling that reveals something true and surprising about the human condition.

The formula for a successful Godzilla movie is as follows: Godzilla + other monster + smashed buildings + cool visuals and loud noises + extended fight sequences + Godzilla wins = Success/Profit.

Does Godzilla vs. Kong do the job? My (mostly) spoiler-free thoughts below.

Monkey See, Monkey Smash

Up front, the film seeks to put the viewer in Kong’s corner. As a proud member of #TeamGodzilla, this was mildly annoying, but hey, I get it. Godzilla is unrelatable and cold; he’s a hurricane, an unrelenting force of nature (at least until you give him a kid–then things get weird). Kong has a better chance of connecting to the human characters more easily (as we’ve seen in the history of King Kong films), so it make sense from a storytelling standpoint to make him the connection point for our audience stand-ins on-screen. And as the film ramps up and it seems like Godzilla is going rogue and turning against humanity, the humans need the big ape in their corner.

I wasn’t a huge fan of his last “Legendary Monsterverse” film, Kong: Skull Island, mainly because I think it didn’t know what it wanted to be and tried to include too much Acting and Story to be an effective Kong film. (See formula for Godzilla success, above.) That said, I thought the CGI for Kong was really good at that point, and it’s only gotten better. The CGI of Kong’s face and fur in GvK were gorgeous, and it just looked so good on the big screen. (Yes, I watched this in a theater–more on this later.)

In fact, the visuals overall were really stunning in this movie. As I noted previously, the visuals for Godzilla: King of the Monsters were really muddy and dark, so that it was difficult to appreciate the designs of some of the creatures. In GvK, there are beautiful, vibrant vistas that provide the backdrop for these creatures to move and interact, from lush and otherwordly naturescapes to the futuristic neon of bustling urban centers. You can clearly see what is going on at all times, so the fighting and destruction of buildings was crystal-clear and spectacular.

The visuals, the sound design, the fight sequences were all on-point and delivered exactly what I was hoping for.

Unfortunately, the acting and plot also met my (low) expectations.

Cameo, Friend of All Actors

(That was a very weak Gamera reference; you’re welcome.)

Okay, let’s talk plot: it was…let’s be kind and say it was “busy.” But that’s the thing, gang: you probably shouldn’t expect the plot to make much sense. This is part of the whole Godzilla mythos.

In the Toho days, there were all sorts of bonkers plans to try to stop the big guy. Weird, stupid, nonsensical pseudo-science that “just has to work because it’s our only hope!” This movie was no different. I won’t give anything away, but characters were throwing out terms like “gravitational inversion” and “psionic connection” and “living super-computer” like these were sensible, logical terms. It’s gibberish. It’s fine. Eat your popcorn.

The biggest flaw of this movie is frankly that there are too many human characters with not enough to justify their presence, while other characters from the previous films are all but forgotten. Fine actors like Kyle Chandler are given just a few scenes, while characters like Charles Dance’s villainous Alan Jonah are completely ignored in this movie (which doesn’t make sense due to how the post-credits scene from KOTM *should* have played into this film!).

There are essentially 2 groups of human characters, which I’ll call Team A and Team B. Team A has somewhat of an impact on the storyline. They make the choices that drive the action, but really only serve as faciliators to the spectacle. They don’t change anything fundamentally, because in this franchise, the humans are either provacateurs or spectators. This other group of humans includes Befuddled White Guy, Mother Figure, Villain Stand-In, and Little Girl Ape-Whisperer. Do they have names? Sure, but who cares. They have functions and that’s all we need right now. Hush now. Sip your soft drink.

Team B’s sub-plot is more-or-less pointless other than to provide a reveal that honestly could have happened without them (sorry, Millie Bobby Brown). This plot arc follows the antics of Comic Relief Guy, Heroic Young Woman, and Overweight Male Sidekick Who Provides One Single Moment of Usefulness. Other than that one key event (that could have been done any number of ways), they did not impact the storyline at all. At times, it just felt like a necessary vehicle because MBB is still a bankable rising star and the producers think that will get the kids into the seats. (As if the headliners aren’t sufficient!)

I’m being facetious, obviously, but let’s get real here. You didn’t pay your ticket price or HBO Max subscription fee to focus on the human beings in this one. You wanted to see the monsters. And that’s what you got. The humans are glorified subtitles segueing from plot point to plot point.

It sounds like I’m criticizing the film. I’m not.

This is what I came here for.

The Main Event: A Three-Round Championship Bout

And in the end, was I satisfied? Of course I was. This movie was a blast.

The three main fight sequences were thrilling and visceral. There was enough back-and-forth to convince you that Godzilla and Kong are at least competitive, if not equals. When they joined forces to square off against a third combatant, the action ramps up even more.

You know it’s a good action sequence when you find yourself phsically tensed up and flinching one way or the other as you’re watching it.

Now, I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers so far, but I feel compelled to say the following, so put your [SPOILER EARMUFFS ON] and skip to the next section if you don’t want to be spoiled:

While the filmmakers try their best to keep it even and ambiguous, there’s no doubt in my mind that Godzilla proved to be superior. Kong needed human assistance and/or weapons to beat Godzilla, and Godzilla essentially killed Kong at the end, before he was revived. The only reason Mecha-Godzilla almost beat Godzilla was because he had just finished fighting Kong and was exhausted/hurt. Having Godzilla and Kong take down the mech together and then give begrudgingly respect as they each retreated to their home base was a perfect way to end this film and leave the door open for future sequels. (I’m still holding out home for a Godzilla vs. Mecha-Ghidorah storyline–I’m just saying, there are 2 more heads out there somewhere.)

Okay, [SPOILER EARMUFFS OFF].

Support Your Local Moviehouse

I’ve been looking forward to this movie since it was announced…and delayed…and delayed again. With the way that the pandemic seemed to be threatening the economic landscape and the nature of how we consume entertainment, I had serious concerns about whether or not I would get to see this movie in a theater in all its big, dumb, loud glory.

Thankfully, as we seem to be moving toward the end of the pandemic’s grip on society, movie theaters have started reopening, and I was able to go with a group of friends and sit in a nearly-empty movie theater to watch this spectacle exactly as it was intended to be seen.

Before the show started, we settled into our seats, overpriced snacks in hand. The atmosphere was almost giddy, as we chatted through the previews for Fast and Furious 9, Free Guy, Black Widow, and a few other upcoming features. Then, the show began. We cheered, we laughed, we commented up and down the row at different points. And as the lights came up and the end credits rolled, we laughed and joked as we walked out of the theater, revelling in what we had experienced together.

It had been about a year and a half since I’d sat in a movie theater. And while my movie-going outings have become more scarce in recent years since I became a parent, I still got out once in a while, either on a date with my wife or on a Saturday morning with friends. When the pandemic shut down the theaters, I was concerned that this was the end of an era for moviegoing. While it was unlikely that theaters would go away entirely (at least at this point), I started to question if the era of the big megaplex theater was coming to an close.

Hopefully, as the world bounces back from Covid through better treatments, vaccine availability, and smarter health practices, we can get back to “normal”–or at least a better version of “normal”–so that things like live sports and movie theaters become part of our cultural experience again. There’s something special about sitting with your friends (or a hundred strangers) in a darkened theater and enjoying the excitement and spectacle of a blockbuster movie as a group. Moviegoing is a communal event, a shared experience. It’s not just about the movie itself; it’s the whole process–tickets, concessions, the seats, the conversations on the way in and on the way out. It would be a shame to lose all of that. I hope we don’t.

So here’s my final recommendation: Godzilla vs. Kong was a silly, senseless spectacle of smashing that should be enjoyed in a movie theater. Grab a group of friends, buy a big ol’ tub of popcorn and a soda, and have a great time.

Grief, Perservering: Final Thoughts on “WandaVision”

Hello again, friends! I’m back to give my quick retrospective thoughts on WandaVision. Yes, it’s been a few weeks since the finale (what can I say, new baby and all that), but I still wanted to revisit the show and its themes because they were so rich with ideas for discussion.

So, don’t touch that dial–let’s get into it!

Very Special Episodes

First off, I have nothing but HUGE praise for the director and the writing and production teams on maintaining the television tropes and framing throughout the series. It was an absolute delight to recognize subtle references in both the opening credits sequences and the way the “on-air” segments were shot. I especially enjoyed that Malcolm in the Middle got a some love as the framing style for the Halloween episode. That show doesn’t get nearly enough credit!

The other references were stellar, from the theme song changes reflecting the 80’s (Family Ties, Growing Pains, Full House) and the 2000’s (The Office, Modern Family) to the use of the commercials as glimpses into Wanda’s damaged subconscious (the Yo!Magic yogurt commercial still creeps me out). Even the titles of the episodes were a wink to classic sitcom tropes and traditions. The care and love that the showrunners have for past shows took this concept from a quirky oddity to a really heartwarming retrospective of television history, decked out in a superhero costume.

While not perfect, this series wildly exceeded my expectations in terms of production and style. It bodes well for the other Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) shows coming to Disney+, and how seriously Marvel Studios is taking its TV storytelling.

Recasting Pietro

With all that lavished praise in place, let’s go ahead and talk about my biggest disappointment in the series: the Pietro Fake-out.

As you may recall, Episode 5 ended with a HUGE reveal: an unexpected knock at the door revealed “Pietro” back from the dead–but it was the Fox X-Men Unverse’s Pietro, not the MCU version. The internet fandom collectively lost its mind (me included), because this seemed to imply that upcoming “multiverse” storylines were being introduced by crossing over another version of Quicksilver into the Marvel 199999 (MCU) “universe.”

If you don’t know why this is such a big deal, permit me a brief discursis.

The biggest challenge in creating the MCU had nothing to do with storytelling or characters and everything to do with lawyers. Over the decades, various corporations had acquired the rights to Marvel superheroes — Fox owned the film rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four, Sony owned Spiderman, and so on. So while all of these characters lived together in the same world (more or less) in the comics, and interacted with each other, the ‘twain could never meet in the movies–or so we thought.

In 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, the MCU introduced the Maximoff siblings Wanda and Pietro as supers who were created by Hydra’s nefarious tinkering; however, in the comics, they were actually mutants, the children of Magneto from the X-Men stories. Since the idea of “mutants” was legally off-limits to the MCU, we all assumed that these would just be alternate versions of the characters (since they existed in both movie franchises with different actors/backstories) and that was that. Then Disney decided it would become the One Studio to Rule Them All and not only acquired Fox and its properties but negotiated to bring in Spiderman into the MCU, beginning in Captain America: Civil War.

Once Disney bought out Fox, the questions began circulating: When would we see some version of the X-Men in the MCU? Who would be the first “outside” character to cross over? The Fantastic Four? Wolverine? And surely this won’t happen until years into the future, right? Phase 5 or 6 of the MCU story?

So when Evan Peters, the Fox X-Men film version of Quicksilver, was revealed standing in the doorway asking for a hug from his “sister,” I was one of thousands who did this:

I literally paused the show for about 2 minutes and excitedly explained the above to my bemused wife. I just couldn’t believe it. They were really going to do it! The multiverse was happening NOW!!!

Except it wasn’t.

The showrunners later said that this was meant as a cheeky meta-reference and nothing more. I’m still not sure I buy that. If they could have pulled off this kind of major crossover, I think they would have, so I’m wondering if they got word from the executives that this kind of storyline move was coming too soon, and they had to quickly change course on “Fietro.” In the end, the character was just another townsperson (with a dumb joke name). What a let-down.

This was probably my biggest (maybe only?) beef with WandaVision. In a show full of bold strokes and daring narrative choices, this would have been the biggest bombshell move, steering the course of the TV shows and films for years. Maybe that was too much to ask. I was just so delighted with being legitimately surprised for once.

Aside from that issue, what else do I have to say about the show?

“It was Agony All Along…”

In the end, I was…surprisingly close, if not dead-on correct, with most of my predictions. How about that!

Wanda did it. While Agatha Harkness / Agnes was manipulating some elements of the Hex (and seriously, how fun was that character!), it was truly Wanda controlling the town, even if she didn’t realize fully how she was doing it.
Vision wasn’t *really* there. That is to say, his physical body from the end of Avengers: Endgame was still at SWORD’s lab until the end of Episode 8. The version of Vision in the “show” was created by Wanda and bound to the Hex.
Wanda had “friends” on the outside, trying to break in. Although Wanda didn’t know any of the people trying to break in, at least some of them were friendlies, including Monica, Darcy, and Jimmy. (All three brought such great energy and fun to the proceedings. What perfect choices for secondary characters to get a chance to shine when not bound to their usual superhero storylines!)
There wasn’t a “bad guy” in the typical sense. The SWORD director was definitely villainous (I mean, you don’t shoot at kids, not matter how you want to justify it), and Agatha was the main opponent in the climactic battle, but in terms of overarching villains for the show, the only real nemesis was Wanda’s all-consuming grief. That grief created the pastel prison that enwrapped Wanda and the other townspeople. Her memories filled the nightmares of her prisoners. Her pain drove her to do unheroic things. It was Wanda all along.
My only “miss” was on the mutant question. And I even guessed this (based on the speculation of others) before Evan Peters showed up, so I should get at least half-credit for anticipating the massive fan speculation. (No? Okay, fine, mark it as a miss.)

It could be argued that a lot of these elements were predictable. (For example, the fanbase identified Agnes as Agatha Harkness from almost the word “go.”) But rather than making it boring, the fact that so many of the references and Easter eggs were guessed by the fan community made it a game of figuring out how the story would eventually play out.

That said, I guess it’s not *that* impressive that my guesses were right–but I’m still claiming the W, y’all.

Saying Goodbye, and Hello

What made this show work in the end?

WandaVision wasn’t ultimately about superheroes and androids and witches and action sequences, though that’s what may have sold people on it at the outset. At its heart, the show was a meditation on love and grief. The strongest and most memorable moments were the quiet conversations, the honest arguments, and the tender exchanges between the titular characters.

The final two episodes were an emotional rollercoaster, as we are taken deep into Wanda’s past to relive with her the traumas that brought her to this point. Even the major (and presumably expensive) special effects sequences pale in comparison to the final moments of Wanda and Vision embracing as their “world” collapses around them. Wanda has to say goodbye to the children she has grown to love and the husband she could never truly have. She is forced to accept that some people never get “happily ever after.” And she does accept it…at least for now.

While there are some hints that Wanda may now be looking for a way to cheat death and pull her family from another plane of existence (possibly setting up an even darker storyline for her in the future), that doesn’t take away from the emotional punch of the resolution of WandaVision.

It’s easy to write off superhero movies as little more than apocalyptic sky-beams, mindless explosions, and popcorn entertainment. Many times, that’s really all they are and need to be. But when these elements are employed to create a story that dives into the deep waters of human experience in an honest and challenging way, the genre becomes something special.

WandaVision is that kind of special entry in the MCU, and I really hope that the folks at Marvel Studios take note and keep aiming for this level of storytelling in the future.

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What did you think of WandaVision? Share your raves and/or critiques in the comments!

“Quite An Unusual Couple”: Early Thoughts on “WandaVision” (Episodes 1-3)

I love comic-book movies and have been a pretty big fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) thusfar, so I was cautiously intrigued when Disney first announced their upcoming Marvel streaming series’ that would premiere on Disney+. Of the shows that were announced, I figured The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Hawkeye would be my favorites, but the one that didn’t make sense at all to me was WandaVision.

Early descriptions of the premise sounded pretty terrible, to be honest. “Wanda and Vision as a couple in a sitcom”? What a letdown from the heights of Infinity War and Endgame–and wait, isn’t Vision still dead? What’s going on here?

A few months back, when the first teasers and trailers for the show were released, my mind changed completely. From the visuals and editing to the music cues and special effects, it was clear that WandaVision was going to get weird–and that got my attention. Okay, MCU, let’s get weird.

Well, we’re now 3 episodes in, and I’m 100% on-board. Here are my early thoughts on the show so far (and yes, there will be spoilers, so if you are waiting to watch the show, click away now):

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Initial Disclaimer #1: I’ve only watched these episodes once so far (I may give them another go soon), so this is based on initial impressions and the things I’ve gleaned from the internet after each viewing.

Initial Disclaimer #2: I’m not as versed with the comics versions of these characters, so other than some broad-stroke information (e.g. The Scarlet Witch is the daughter of Magneto), my knowledge base is primarily the MCU version of the characters.

Nick (Fury) at Nite

What struck me from the outset was the outstanding visual direction, set and costume design, and use of sound cues. The production team has recreated the vibe of a classic TV sitcom with each episode, and the care and intentionality of the direction and design is apparent. The first episode all but perfectly recreates the living room from The Dick Van Dyke Show (including a cheeky “ottoman side-step” reference!), while the next 2 episodes change the house to reflect the design sensibility of Bewitched and The Brady Bunch. The use of the canned laugh-track, the writing, and the storylines seem to be ripped directly out of Sheldon Leonard’s old notebooks, and the show looks like it was shot on the DesiLu back-lot. Even the opening credits are created to evoke those era-specific TV shows, often directly referencing the animation or font design of the titles.

What’s more: the “classic” comedy plots and writing work for me. I’ve read critiques calling the storylines hokey or corny, but as someone who grew up on countless hours of sitcom reruns from that era, it hits the spot for me and makes me genuinely laugh throughout–to the point that I become a little self-conscious about it, while watching the show with my wife. The fact is, I absolutely love that era of television. It’s visual comfort food. And the showrunners get it.

Rather than try to mock or parody the genre, the WandaVision team has created a kind of love-letter to that time period in TV history, and the show feels like it would fit right in with the classic Nick-At-Nite lineup of my youth… at least until someone starts choking or cuts their hand, at which point the illusion begins to shatter.

It’s Creepy and It’s Kooky

What makes the show work as part of the MCU is what has (up to this point) been lingering at the edges: certain moments when the audience can see (and the characters themselves begin to acknowledge) that none of this is real. This creates a palpable dread that hovers just off-screen for most of each episode.

The ways this is done are varied and creative: Wanda’s ability to rewind or edit conversations; errant radio broadcasts that break through the musical background; splashes of color during the first 2 “black-and-white” episodes, a la Pleasantville. Even the commercials in the middle of each episode are full of Easter eggs and clues about this ongoing mystery. Then, in Episode 3, the facade falls away, as Vision’s neighbors seem to allude to their being held prisoner in this idyllic town, and Wanda’s friend Geraldine outright mentions Ultron when Wanda begins talking about the death of her brother.

So what’s going on? Here are my current theories, based partly on some things I’ve read about the visual references in the first 3 episodes (and I’m posting this today because I have a feeling the plot’s going to get blown wide open with Episode 4):

I’m fairly sure Wanda’s in control. The times that Wanda uses her powers to “clip” conversations or rewind time tell me that she’s the one in charge (at least, in charge of what’s happening inside Westview–though someone or something else might be controlling her?). The town of Westview is a simulation, a pocket universe, or some sort of reality-stone-style construct. She’s incorporated the classic TV she may have seen as a child in Eastern Europe and used it to create an idyllic “happy ending” for herself and Vision that she feels they deserve and were denied.
I’m not sure Vision is *really* there. At least, not the Vision that Wanda knew and loved in Infinity War. The Vision we see here is either a construct of Wanda’s fantasy, or perhaps an earlier “save file” of him that she was able to get hold of. Either way, he’s as much a prisoner as anyone else in this town.
Wanda’s friends are trying to break in. Geraldine is clearly an agent of SHIELD or is working on their behalf, but when she oversteps and pushes on Wanda too hard, she’s expelled from the fantasy world. It’s clear at the end of Episode 3 that SHIELD (or at least SWORD, which I learned is an office within SHIELD) is trying to protect (Contain? Control?) Wanda, perhaps because she’s more powerful than they can handle at this point.
There isn’t a “bad guy”–or at least, if there is, it’s Wanda. My guess is that once she realizes the illusion will not hold, she may become angry and/or vengeful and may lash out at those trying to bring her back to the real world, unless or until “Vision” talks her down and convinces her that it’s time to let go and move on. This ending will be heartbreaking, but ultimately satisfying.
This opens the door to “mutant” involvement in Phase IV. The background question in all this is how these Disney+ series’ interact with MCU Phase IV. I’m wondering if this show will be used as a way to lay the groundwork for introducing the X-Men into the MCU, since the character of Wanda now firmly has a foot planted in both “worlds.” (Note: I didn’t come up with this idea; one of the “easter egg” posts I read online connected the Episode 3 commercial language about the “goddess within” to the possibility of retconning Wanda’s powers so that they were innate to her as a mutant, rather than created by Strucker and Hydra.)

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So there you go: early reaction and theories about WandaVision, in advance of Episode 4’s release. I’m absolutely digging this show, and I can’t wait to see how it ends. If you want me to follow-up with some final thoughts once the series concludes, let me know in the comments and I’ll be happy to oblige you. (I may do it anyway.)

Your Turn: What do you think of WandaVision so far? Is it funny and intriguing? Hokey and slow? Mysterious and spooky and altogether ooky? Let me know in the comments below!

Through Another Dimension: Considering “Twilight Zone 2019” (Part 5) – Season 2, Episodes 6-10

Hey friends! You know, they say that if you want to be a successful blogger, you should write engaging posts that serve your readers. And believe it or not, I do try to keep that in mind, but sometimes I just want to write something for me. These posts on the recent Twilight Zone seasons have definitely been one of those “selfish content” series, based on readership stats, but I don’t want to leave the miniseries hanging without closure, so today I’ll finish up my brief discussion of Season 2 of The Twilight Zone (2019).

As noted previously, the premise descriptions will be mostly spoiler-free, but my thoughts/response will not be. Let’s do this thing!

Episode 2.06 – “8”

The Premise: Members of a scientific research team in the Antarctic collect a biological specimen that proves far more intelligent than any of them anticipated–and underestimating it will prove disastrous.

The Payoff: To be honest, this one fell flat for me, but I’m not sure it had much of a chance. I watched it during my lunch break (making lunch and trying to get an episode of TV in while my wife and kids were at the park), so I was a bit distracted and rushed. On top of that, the “twist” (not that there really was one) was spoiled for me by accident on an episode of Tom Elliot’s Twilight Zone Podcast, in which some viewer feedback mentioned the reveal (derisively), so I knew going in what was going to happen. But even without those factors impacting my viewing experience, there really wasn’t much to this episode. Essentially, the crew of a science outpost finds a hyper-intelligent octopus that immediately figures out how to kill several of the scientists, use computers, and get smarter? Ehhhh. When your pitch is, “it’s like The Thing, but instead of a monster/alien, it’s an octopus,” I’m not sure it should have been green-lit. I enjoyed Joel McHale in a “non-Joel-McHale” role, and the creep factor (and unexpected gross-out factor) was fairly effective in spite of the premise. But in the end, I just didn’t care that much. I should have gone back and rewatched this with the subtitles on, because I feel like there may have been a lot of details in the dialogue that I just missed in my distracted state. Even so–an octopus?

Episode 2.07 – “A Human Face”

The Premise: An alien creature arrives at the home of a grieving couple, taking the form of their dead teenaged daughter. The couple faces a difficult question: not “Is this actually our daughter?” but rather, “Does it matter if it isn’t?”

The Payoff: I really wanted to enjoy this episode, and appreciated most of it in retrospect…right up until the ending. (Seems to be a recurring theme with this rebooted series.) The performances were gripping, and the idea of an alien using telepathy/empathic abilities to impersonate a dead loved one is horrifying. What made it all the more disturbing is that the alien acknowledged that it wasn’t really the couple’s daughter back from the dead, but still spoke “in her voice” to mess with the couple’s minds, and it worked. The set-up is great, the CGI was TV-okay, and the progressing of the plot/dialogue was intriguing. At the point when you realize that the mother is so desperate to have more time with her lost girl that she’s willing to pretend that this alien creature *is* her, the horror becomes heart-breaking.

But then the whole thing shifts–why? Because the alien, WHO HAD ADMITTED IT WAS SENT TO EARTH TO PACIFY THE POPULACE AND PREPARE FOR AN INVASION, suddenly changes its mind because it experiences the love that the parents had for their daughter. And when the couple and their “doppel-daughter” walk outside, you see that every house on the block has a simliar “happy family” walking outside together. So–hang on… So, you’re telling me that in every one of these houses, these alien drones designed to manipulate emotions to suppress the populace all had the same epiphany? I kept waiting for it to be a trick–the final manipulation, convincing the humans that it was “won over by love” only to trap them with their own belief that love conquers all. But then Peele’s closing narration says the alien was “conquered itself by humanity. It will go on laboring now under a yoke of its own design.” And that’s it. The alien invasion force was fully thwarted by the power of love. Come on, y’all. This was a great premise and a really effective narrative progression that was killed stone dead by an unbearably sentimental conclusion. I’m the kind of guy who enjoys sentimentality, but it’s got to make sense. And in this particular episode of The Twilight Zone, that ending feels like a cop-out.

Episode 2.08 – “A Small Town”

The Premise: A grieving widower discovers that making changes to a scale model of his small town can bring those changes to life in the real world, and he must decide how he wants to wield such power.

The Payoff: On the other hand, here’s an episode where the sentimentality works. While this one isn’t ostensibly a “holiday episode,” it has the vibe of a softer TZ classics like “Night of the Meek.” Some TZ episodes are morality plays that punish characters for their fatal flaws, while others are sweeter and more pleasant in their storytelling. “A Small Town” manages to be a bit of both, with passable results. The main character, Jason, is still grieving the death of his wife, the mayor of a small mountain town, when a local pastor gives Jason a job and a place to live to help him get back on his feet. In the attic of the rectory, Jason discovers a perfect scale model of his town, and then finds that changes he makes in the model are reflected in real life. While his wife’s replacement as mayor (played by David Krumholz as more smarmy than menacing) is dismissive of his constituents’ requests for improved public works, Jason uses the model to make those changes and improve life for his fellow citizens. Once the mayor starts taking credit for the good work being done, Jason uses the model to get even with the opportunistic and egotistical public servant–smashing his car or scaring him with a “giant” tarantula.

The climax of the episode–the antagonist discovers the existence of the “magic gizmo” and monologues about how he will use it for selfish purposes–is almost too cliched to bear, and in the end, the breaking of the table and the resulting chaos in town seemed to be resolved a bit too easily. I was hoping for more meat on the bone (for example, the breaking of the model table could have resulted in catastrophic damage, showing the Jason’s increasingly selfish use of the model was being punished by the Zone’s justice). But I think I was expecting this episode to be a bit more like that first kind of story I mentioned. Instead, the no-good mayor was shown to be a selfish jerk and the town turns him out, and Jason is presumably given credit for the good he did and how he engendered goodwill and community spirit among his neighbors. And that’s fine. This isn’t a story you’d go back to repeatedly, but the premise is a little fun, even if it seems like a missed opportunity.

Episode 2.09 – “Try, Try”

The Premise: Claudia has a chance encounter with a charismatic, romantic stranger named Marc, and as they spend the day together, he always seems to know the perfect thing to say or do. There’s a reason for that…

The Payoff: I saw a description online (I believe) that this episode is like if Bill Murray’s character from “Groundhog Day” were actually a sociopath. I don’t think I can sum it up much better than that. The first act of this story gives us Claudia’s meet-cute with the enigmatic Marc, who seems to know the perfect comment or compliment to pique Claudia’s interest or make her smile. As they spend the day together, Marc starts making little side comments that confuse Claudia but tip the audience off to the fact that he’s not what he seems. Finally, the shoe drops and he admits that he’s lived this day over and over so many times that he’s essentially perfected his “first date” with Claudia (and has frequently ended up in her bed). Claudia is understandably unsettled, but Marc persists, arguing that he knows her better than she knows herself and they’re perfect for each other. (Also, the name “Marc” is a lie to gain her trust. No big deal, right?) He has begun to feel godlike in his omniscience, to the point that he may be able to do whatever he wants to her and it won’t matter because the next day she’ll vanish like a dream.

Oh man, was this episode a creep fest! While it very clearly falls in the same vein as Season 1’s “Not All Men” and to some extent the S2 premiere, “Meet in the Middle,” it more effectively captures the message of those episodes without seeming as preachy (mostly): men who presume upon women can easily become predatory, and that kind of behavior can escalate dangerously. In the climax of the episode, when Marc essentially tells Claudia that he might just assault and/or murder her for his own amusement, since she’s “not real” to him, he embodies a real-world evil and a type of guy that tragically does exist in our culture. And the reason this portrayal is so horrific is because Topher Grace is just stellar in the role. He has a natural boyish charm that is disarming and unthreatening, but he can also turn on the menace in an instant, and that juxtaposition is exactly what makes this character so disturbing.

My only beef with the episode (brace yourselves for a shock) is the resolution. Claudia gets her “yass queen” combat moment (meh), which thankfully was a bit more believable since Grace isn’t physically imposing so the power differential was a bit more balanced. Her promise that she’ll kick his tail in any future iteration of the day (so he’d better not try that again) rings a bit hollow since there’s really nothing stopping him from doing all the things he threatened to do–because he’s still that same wicked guy, just now with more advanced warning. The fact that this momentary comeuppance somehow cows him into never attempting this evil again seems to indicate a shocking naivete about human nature on the writer’s part. The final sequence also demonstrates that Marc’s initial assumption that he was always saving her from being hit by a bus was presumptive (she’s fine, she doesn’t need you, man! *snaps*) and he is now locked in a TZ time loop, doomed to relive the day. That’s his punishment…except it’s not, really. Yes, being stuck in the timeloop is bad, but I don’t know if it’s bad enough. Not for him. Now, a time-loop in which his wickedness results in suffering? That might be interesting, though that may drift a bit too close to the classic episode, “Shadow Play.”

All in all, this was one of the strongest episodes of the season, with knockout performances (no pun intended) by the leads.

Episode 2.10 – “You Might Also Like”

The Premise: Janet Warren is on the waiting list to receive “The Egg,” the amazing device that will make all of her dreams come true and take away her pain. But when she notices inexplicable happenings around her, as well as out-of-character and irrational behavior by her friends and neighbors, she has second thoughts about picking up this life-changing device.

The Payoff: Oh man, where to begin with this one. The visual style, cinematography, and editing were almost too clever–like when film school students are trying really, really hard to evoke the right visual cues and film history references, and you feel as if they’re sitting next to you during the episode, watching you watch it and saying, “did you see that? did you get what I was going for?” The conceits of constant commercial interruptions, fourth-wall lampshading, and extremely mannered acting were jarring, and I sat through the whole episode with a half-smile on my face and my head cocked to one side like Nipper, repeatedly mumbling, “What…is…happening?” It was a similar feeling I had when watching the Season 1 finale, “Blurryman”–but taken to the extreme.

So our story is about Janet Warren, a housewife who is having repeated black-outs, hears unexplained sounds, has dreams she can’t understand, and is hoping that The Egg will solve all of her problems. I nearly called it the “Amazon Egg” just now because the anti-consumerism theme is basically presented in flashing neon during the entire episode. And it’s not like this messaging is anything new, at least from the outset. For most of the episode, you don’t even see the Egg, but it takes on a mythical persona, like the famed Maltese Falcon, “the stuff that dreams are made of.” Once Janet starts questioning if that’s the case, things get real crazy. How crazy?

The Kanamits from “To Serve Man” show up, but in a new and more allegedly-humorous incarnation. (Ooooh, we made a pronouns joke, aren’t we hip!) Technically, as some pointed out online, it must be an alternate timeline version, since they are unknown to humanity at this point. And to be fair, pulling out one of the most iconic alien characters from the classic series is a bold move, Cotton, but I’m just not sure how it plays out for them. Especially when Janet (should she have been named Karen?) essentially asks to speak to the alien hive mind’s manager, and they concede? What?

Janet speaks to the female Kanamit in charge who admits, yes, it’s aliens who are behind The Egg. (Feel free to make an Elon Musk joke to yourself.) They are baffled and distrustful of humanity’s penchant for independent thought. They have studied human television for years, and realized the way to entrap humanity was through its commercialism and desire to buy happiness. And oh, by the way, The Egg is literally that–an alien egg that will hatch a carnivorous Kanamit piranha-baby. (The slow-mo “misting” of Janet’s friend just out of frame is a shocking sequence that effectively horrifies without showing actual violence.) So does Janet decide to stand up against the alien menace and tear the whole thing down? No, because Janet is broken. She had lost her unborn child years before and feels a gaping wound there. She is struggling to cope with this on her own. (Her husband and other child aren’t seen anywhere in the episode other than a framed photo–no explanation given.) So Janet decides to take The Egg home, knowing it will kill her, because she’ll at least get to hold it for a little while. Sorry, again…what? While I recognize the deep heartbreak of miscarriage (we have some experience there in our family), this just doesn’t make sense.

The final shot of this episode is bonkers, with flying saucers hovering over a town descending into madness. I should amend what I said previously: the bold visual style is over-the-top but it WORKS.

This episode…I don’t know. It works, sort of, but the bold leaps it takes only stick the landing sporadically. Ending a season in which I’ve noted that the show’s writing has often played it safe, this one really came out of left field, and that alone should get some credit. It was a daring and exuberant semi-failure, which also makes it a middling success.

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So, what did I think of Season 2 as a whole?

In my final comments on Season 1, I talked about how the show struggled with thematic subtlety, and that the “message” episodes were a bit too ham-fisted and surface-level to be enjoyed. At the start of this season, it felt like the showrunners were trying to play it a bit too safe, in terms of themes. I think that’s still the case on the whole for Season 2. However, looking back, I think Season 2 was perhaps just a bit more effective at subtle themes and messages. They were still there to be sure–the recurring “arrogant, selfish, toxic man” trope came up in 4 episodes: “Try, Try,” “The Who of You,” “Meet in the Middle,” and to a small degree (no pun intended) in “A Small Town.” There was also a recurring theme (noted by the showrunners in pre-season press) of misdirection, people and situations not being what they appear at first. That idea is present in every episode of this season, and ties the stories together nicely. On the other hand, the weakness of the season is that too few of the episodes were willing to do something bold and unexpected, the way that “Among the Untrodden” or “You May Also Like” managed to do so.

If the theme from “Blurryman” was that you can still tell good “campfire” stories that contain social messages without lampshading them, Season 2 of The Twilight Zone (2019) has demonstrated that playing it too safe results in a satisfying but average show. Nevertheless, despite some frustrating writing decisions throughout the run (and cheap/easy resolutions), this season was still fun to watch, and I’ll be back for Season 3. There were just a few times when it felt like the potential for great work was within reach, but the show came up a bit short.

Here’s how I’d rank Season 2’s episodes, from my least favorite of the season to my most favorite:

10. “8”
9. “Ovation”
8. “Downtime”
7. “A Small Town”
6. “A Human Face”
5. “You Might Also Like”
4. “Meet in the Middle”
3. “Among the Untrodden”
2. “Try, Try”
1. “The Who of You”

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That’s all I’ve got for today. Perhaps sometime before the next season premieres, I’ll pick this blog miniseries up again and give you my recommendations for top-ten classic TZ episodes. Until then, thanks for taking a walk with me through another dimension!

Did you watch any of this season of The Twilight Zone? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Through Another Dimension: Considering “Twilight Zone 2019” (Part 4) – Season 2, Episodes 1-5

Finally! I’m back with some thoughts on the first five episodes of The Twilight Zone (2019), Season 2. As noted previously, the premise descriptions will be spoiler-free but my thoughts/response will not be. So, be forewarned. Also, unlike the posts covering Season 1, I (mostly) haven’t listened to or read anyone else’s analysis, so…well, hopefully my takes aren’t too terrible–okay, let’s go!

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Episode 2.01 – “Meet in the Middle”

The Premise: A lonely man suddenly discovers a psychic connection to an intriguing woman he’s never laid eyes on, and the two strangers begin a long-distance telepathic relationship. Once things start becoming more “real” and the couple decides to meet, their rom-com story takes a sinister turn.

The Pay-off: After the ups and downs of Season 1, ending with the fantastic “Blurryman,” I was bracing against a let-down to start Season 2. Instead, we got a pretty solid season opener. We are presented with Phil, a bachelor on a blind date who suddenly hears the voice of a woman named Annie in his head. While the script plays a bit with the idea that perhaps Phil was just imagining this voice, I never doubted that she was a real person (man, if they had “Tyler Durden”-ed this episode…). Part of that confidence may have been that I didn’t think they would pull in Gillian Jacobs as Annie and not have her show up on screen at some point.

The first half of the episode played like a strange but sweet romantic comedy, as the two characters fall in love via long-distance (kind of like a telepathic “You’ve Got Mail”). Then the story turns sinister about halfway through, and you remember, oh yeah, I’m watching “The Twilight Zone.” Once it’s revealed that Annie is married, I wondered if this would become a Double Indemnity situation. Add in Phil’s frightening outburst of anger as his obsession with Annie gets the better of him, and it had all the makings of a real creepfest. The entire time Phil was on the train heading toward Annie and they talked of running away together, I kept waiting for the bottom to drop out–which it did, in a big, bad way.

As Phil searched for her at the train stop after listening helplessly to her screams that she was being followed about an hour before, I half-expected him to come across her body and then be somehow discovered and accused of her murder. But when he gets to the house in the woods, I immediately realized how it was about to go down. As he went inside, I kept waiting for the camera to pan up and show a picture on the mantle of Annie and her husband. Instead, we are left with the chilling image of Phil covered in blood after bludgeoning the poor man to death, with Annie and her horrified daughter looking on. The scene of Phil sitting in the police car as the weight of what just happened fully lands on him was really well-delivered but tough to watch, and then Annie’s voice cuts in and reveals that it was all a set-up. Oh man, what a nightmare. This was a chilling tale about obsession and unmet expectations, and it kicked off the season in a satisfying way.

Episode 2.02 – “Downtime”

The Premise: After landing a much-deserved promotion, it looks like Michelle Weaver’s perfect life has finally come together…until everyone around her stands up, eyes transfixed on the giant orb in the sky.

The Pay-off: This was an episode with a great premise and a couple of really great performances that still left me a little cold in the end. First of all, the acting: Morena Baccarin is fantastic as always, and even given just a few pages of dialogue, Tony Hale is a delight on-screen. The visuals of this episode were top-shelf: the shot of everyone standing around looking up at the orb is one of the most vivid images in this new TZ run, and it captures the vibe so well. The central conceit of the episode–a person learns that her life is actually an avatar in a simulation–is pure sci-fi, and the idea of an avatar becoming sentient when the user dies while connected to the system is a concept worth exploring. I even loved how Michelle’s interactions with the “customer service reps” of the simulation company reflect her own interactions earlier in the episode. The writing was pretty crisp, and the episode didn’t overstay its welcome. If anything, the first act could have been extended a little to ramp up the creepiness.

Where the episode started losing me was the introduction of the “user’s” wife, which I thought that was a bit clunky (the whole “I know you’re still in there” thing has been done). In the end, Michelle stays in the simulation (because what else was she going to do?), but her user’s wife comes back to the hotel to stay for a while (implying they would carry on a relationship)–WHICH DOESN’T MAKE SENSE because while there may be some traces of the man’s psyche or personality extant in Michelle’s programming, she’s still not the same guy, and his wife (who had no prior relationship with Michelle inside the simulation) is going to seek to spark some sort of romantic relationship with a woman who is only tangentially like her husband? It just seems unlikely. This just felt like a lazy way for the writers to throw in a same-sex relationship just to say they could. In the end, cool set-up, good performances, but they stumbled at the landing.

Episode 2.03 – “The Who of You”

The Premise: When Harry Pine discovers he can switch bodies with people at will, the struggling actor makes one desperate and foolish decision after another in the hopes of saving his relationship.

The Pay-off: First of all, ETHAN EMBRY. Totally didn’t realize it was him, though I knew the lead was familiar to me somehow. He and his impressive beard deliver a great performance as a struggling, selfish, slightly-conceited actor who decides to rob a bank in a fit of desperation and ends up switching bodies with the teller. I really like that there is no explanation given for this–true to the show’s central conceit, it just *is* because he’s in the Twilight Zone. I also liked the way the body-switching was handled, with people being returned to their bodies once Harry “hands off” to the next person. This allowed the police detective to “follow” Harry in what would have been an otherwise impossible pursuit. Instead, it provided a clean narrative device for moving the plot along.

In many ways, this episode reminded me of “The Four of Us are Dying” and “The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross” from the classic series–stories of desperate and selfish men who abuse their abilities in order to get out of jams or improve their situations. In the case of “The Who of You,” however, you don’t get the same kind of tragic, morality-play ending–at least not the one that you expect. I definitely assumed the stand-off in the psychic’s storefront would have ended with Harry dying, but instead, he comes away from it unharmed, yet now without another body to go back to. The twist is when, having accepted his permanent “role” as the detective, he goes to his now-former apartment in the guise of the detective to inform Harry’s girlfriend of his demise, only to realize that she’s been cheating on Harry with the detective the whole time. (Unfortunately, this was pretty obvious when the episode kept lampshading his phone calls to an unknown woman.)

The strength of an episode of like “The Who of You” resides in its performances, and I think, for the most part, the various character actors were pretty solid (I was most impressed by the kid, because child actors don’t usually have that kind of control). Billy Porter was a bit of stunt casting that doesn’t distract from the story, because they had him play essentially himself but as a fake psychic. Embry steals the show, however, as he portrays not just Harry but every person he “inhabits,” and there are subtle differences in each character that make his performance very effective. All in all, a good entry in this season’s list, and a nice throwback to past episodes in the classic run.

Episode 2.04 – “Ovation”

The Premise: Jasmine struggles to get her music career off the ground, until she’s given a gift that brings her the adulation she’s dreamed of. Soon, the dream becomes a nightmare.

The Pay-off: From the first scene, I basically had this episode pegged, but I still enjoyed the execution, for the most part. The “be careful what you wish for” story is staple in The Twilight Zone, so when the pop star asks Jasmine, “What do you want?”, the audience knows what’s coming. What made this one work was how much the episode leans into the weirdness of the “cursed” coin. It’s not just that Jasmine suddenly has a meteoric rise to stardom; it’s that the rise was immediate and uncanny. Even though she starts buying into her own fame and begins alienating her sister, she quickly realizes that there’s something off about how popular she’s becoming. Suddenly, people seemed to be enchanted by her every move and sound, to the point where her nervous fumbling in the talent show finals receives thunderous applause. Even the heart-surgery patient on the operating table suddenly starts applauding despite being under anesthesia! (I kept thinking of the scene from the Josie and the Pussycats movie, after a montage showing the band’s rise to fame, when Josie says, “Does anyone else think it’s strange that all this happened in a week?”) In the first half of the episode, as the public’s growing obsession with Jasmine becomes more frantic and frightening, the viewer is pretty familiar with how the beats are playing out.

(One brief side-note: I loved the cornyness of the “Ovation” talent show. While such televised talent shows are commonplace, the whole vibe was straight out of the 1950’s, all the way down to the physical “applause board.” What a wild choice. I love it, because it fits with the whole bizarre tone of the episode.)

Then the episode throws us a narrative curveball: Jasmine throws the coin away, escapes to her family’s cabin, and waits out the publicity “storm.” During this sequence, as she stops taking care of her self and just coasts, subsisting on ramen, she learns that another pop idol has supplanted her. Suddenly, her relief at returning to normal life evaporates, and she becomes obsessed with this new unknown star called Mynx (we conveniently never see more of her face than a glimpse of her made-up eyes in an advertisement). She finally goes to confront the celebrity at an in-person appearance before an adoring crowd, pulling a knife as she walks up and stabs her, only to realize that Mynx (DUM DUM DUMMMM!) is actually her sister, who retrieved the enchanted coin from the lake and became a pop star herself. (As soon as they refused to show Mynx’s face, this seemed like the obvious twist ending.)

The very best part of this episode, honestly, was the final shot. As Mynx is bleeding out on the ground, the sound of the tumultuous crowd around her, her hand opens and the coin rolls out. Two shoes come into frame, as we see Jordan Peele bend down, pick up the coin, stick it in his interior breast pocket with a wry look to the camera, and walk out of frame. No ending monologue, just that little visual button–because what else is needed with this story? We all know the lesson.

The weakness of this episode was that the second half felt too rushed, so the ending didn’t feel earned. Jasmine’s “descent into madness” was portrayed more through edits than acting, and it felt very clipped and quick. If the idea was to portray an addict going through withdrawals, that needed to be a bit drawn out. And then there’s the idea of her sister, a successful surgeon, who decides to fish the coin out of the lake so she can become a pop-star…why? The motivation for that seems completely absent because there’s nothing up to that point that would lead you to believe the character would do that. She had been set up as almost dismissive of show business, choosing instead her “real” (and important) job. So this “twist” was both predictable and a bit hollow.

On the whole, decent but predictable, with a few nice moments but a rushed ending.

Episode 2.05 – “Among the Untrodden”

The Premise: A new student at a girls’ boarding school enlists the help of the queen-bee of a mean-girls clique in studying the existence of psychic abilities. What they learn is that the the darkest influences come from the most common of places.

The Pay-off: Of the first 5 episodes of this season, I think “Among the Untrodden” surprised me the most, and I really didn’t expect it to. Once the set-up of the episode was laid out–outsider-Irene helps Mean-Girl-Madison learn to develop her powers–I saw this going one of two ways: either Irene was going to be the villain, manipulating Madison (or perhaps having more terrifying powers of her own) toward some terrible, “be-careful-what-you-wish-for” end; or Madison, having developed these psychic powers, is either driven crazy by knowing too much about other people (echoes of “A Penny for Your Thoughts” from the classic series?) or abuses the powers and makes the people around her suffer (“It’s A Good Life”). What we got instead was something a bit more thoughtful, if a bit muddled: an exploration of the loneliness of popularity (interesting that this episode comes right after “Ovation”).

Rather than leading us to sympathize with Irene as the outsider, the episode leads us to start seeing Madison in a new light; instead of being a cliche, she becomes a more fully-formed character (her posse does not). Madison’s position in the clique is tenuous at best, and as she reaches out for a more authentic friendship with Irene (and begins to be protective of her, sensing the other girls’ motives), she begins to lose her position within the group. Once the science-fair set-up is revealed (buckets of pig’s blood replaced with a monitor bank of embarrassing video playback), Madison’s suspicions are confirmed and the villains are punished, swiftly and horrifically. No need for gore here; the dead-eyed stare of each girl as they are trolleyed into the back of the ambulance was chilling. The final scene between Irene and Madison really worked me over, as I started guessing and then second-guessing what was really going on. Even when the truth was revealed, I was still confused–it took Peele’s closing narration for the last piece to click into place for me.

And that was one of my two issues with the episode: while the story was both familiar and unpredictable, and the way it played out effectively undercut my expectations and kept me guessing, the script and direction could have been a bit tighter, clarifying thematic elements like Madison’s subconscious loneliness. For example, the shot of the pencil disintegrating at the very beginning was visually effective but a bit unclear in retrospect, given what is revealed in the narrative (did she manifest the pencil because she wanted exactly that object to throw at the new girl?). It felt like one more editing pass could have refined the storytelling even more.

The other problem I had with this episode, perhaps unsurprisingly, was the coarseness of the dialogue. I haven’t talked a lot about the “mature content” in this series, because it’s an adult-rated show that clearly indicates in its advertisements and parental warnings that you’ll get strong, profane language and “adult” dialogue in certain episodes. (As with anything I review or discuss in this blog, I ask and expect you to use your judgment when choosing what media to consume.) With this episode, the dialogue felt especially coarse and crude, as these (ostensibly) teenaged girls were discussing sexuality wtih a frankness that I didn’t think was necessary. Others may argue this is “realistic” for teenaged girls (Lord help us), but it still felt gross to listen in on that kind of conversation, especially coming out of underaged girls.

All of that said, this was definitely one of the best episodes from the first half of Season 2, even despite the writing/direction issues.

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Half-way through Season 2! So what are my thoughts thusfar?

I’m reminded of the Season 1 finale, in which the main character argues that The Twilight Zone should be about the message and not the scares, and she then learns from the Blurryman that the scares are important, too–as in-universe Jordan Peele says, there’s no reason it can’t be both.

Even though Win Rosenfeld, one of the series’ producers, said in an interview with Tom Elliott right before Season 2 aired that he definitely wanted it to be a message show, it honestly feels like these first five episodes of Season 2 have played it relatively safe–almost too safe. And I realize that I could be accused of wanting to have it both ways, because I critiqued the first season’s preachiness, but in my defense, I said how much I enjoyed the well-done “message” episodes. I’m not against social issues in art–just the ham-fisted presentation of them.

This season, the writing is more focused on the narrative hook, which is a nice change of pace. While some of the twists seem to be telegraphed (e.g. the ending of “Meet in the Middle” or the identity of Mynx in “Ovation”), it’s still been enjoyable to watch these twists play out. I’m hoping that the second half of the season has even greater surprises. The showrunners still have to be willing to take some chances, even if they don’t all land. So far, they’ve done solid work, and are set-up to finish the season strong.

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I’ll be back with the back-half of Season 2 in a few weeks. Until then, I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments below!

Through Another Dimension: Considering “Twilight Zone 2019” (Part 3) – Season 1, Episodes 6-10

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Welcome back, friends!

Assume the same caveats from my last post, and let’s get into it, shall we?

Episode 1.06 – “Six Degrees of Freedom”

The Premise: During the final countdown before a manned mission to Mars, the 6-member crew of the Bradbury learns that nuclear war has begun. Facing certain death if they abort the launch, they decide to complete the mission without hope of support–only to begin questioning later what really happened.

The Payoff: Finally, a space travel episode! Not to say that The Twilight Zone is limited to science fiction, but it’s nice for them finally to touch base with the genre that was so associated with the original series. The opening of this episode was killer—the playful elation of the crew as they finish up pre-launch checks, abruptly undercut by the dread and horror of the announced missile strike and the awful implications of their next vital decision: complete the mission, knowing they likely won’t have any support from home, or accept their fate and perish with the rest of the city?

The episode unfolds as a series of snapshots or vignettes, each tagged with the number of days left until the team expects to arrive on Mars. You get to see little pieces of most of the crew’s backstory, though the focus is mainly on the captain. The crew tries their best to keep things going as they should, even under these circumstances. One of the concepts bandied about during these sequences is the idea of a “great filter”–that a species’ level of advancement depends on whether or not they develop the technology (and wherewithal) to explore other worlds, before they destroy themselves.

During these sequences, it’s clear that something’s just a bit off with Jerry, one of the crew members. He finally snaps during a potentially life-threatening solar flare, and tells his panicked crewmates that they have nothing to worry about–he’s convinced this is all a simulation. When he goes out into the unshielded air lock to prove it, he disappears, apparently consumed by the heat, and the rest of the team resigns itself to completing the mission–but always with a question in the back of their minds: “What if Jerry was right?”

Well, here’s the spoiler: he was…and he wasn’t. The crew makes it to Mars (presumably) but the final scene reveals that some unseen higher beings have been observing their efforts. The “great filter” idea pays off here, as the aliens comment on the perseverance of the humans, as well as the actions of the one who figured out they were watching (whom they saved from the solar flare). This opens up the idea of aliens within this TZ2019 universe (and it is a shared universe, as there are references to this space mission back in “Nightmare”), but it seems that this thread will not be picked up again, at least in Season 1.

This episode was strange but fun, and I probably could use another viewing to really “get” it. In some ways, this felt like a set-up episode for a future storyline (which is weird, since this is an anthology show–right? Maybe, maybe not…)

Also, I had no idea what the title refers to, so I looked it up. Per IMDB, this refers to directional movement within a simulation: up/down, left/right, forward/backward, pitch, roll, and yaw. So that’s fun; thanks, IMDB!

Episode 1.07 – “Not All Men”

The Premise: A meteor storm in a small town affects the behavior of about half of the residents, in increasingly terrifying ways.

The Pay-off: This episode…oof. The thing is, I suspect any negative comments I have about this episode might be written off as “male fragility” or “mansplaining” or somesuch, so it makes me slightly hesitant to bother laying out the problems I had with it. Truth be told, there were a lot of things I thought this episode did rather well. The way the main character Annie was depicted enduring instances of everyday sexism was a thought-provoking way to address the real misogyny that exists in our society. The quiet admission of her sister Martha that she had been (presumably) assaulted during her dating years was heart-breaking. The cinematography of the birthday cake scene was terrifying and effective. The acting was pretty solid across the board. And though I sometimes struggle with the phrase “toxic masculinity” (especially since it is often attached to any traditionally masculine ideals/tropes, rather than just negative ones), there are legitimate conversations to be had about the way some men treat women in our culture, and art is often a great way to instigate those conversations.

That said, the big problem with this episode, as with “The Wunderkind,” is that the writer/director took the central conceit of a meteor rock bringing out the worst traits of the men in the town, and used it like a sledgehammer. Once the chaos ramped up and the episode shifted to almost a zombie-horror tale (which, again, I thought was a cool choice, honestly), all subtlety from the first part of the episode was destroyed, to the point that the end narration of the episode basically argues, “yes, basically all men.” (Get it? The episode title was ironic.)

This is an episode I wish I could hash out in friendly coversation, because it’s worth discussing and my feelings on it are truly mixed. The two biggest issues I have with the writing of this episode are 1) the story’s thematic inconsistency, and 2) the inadequate worldview expressed. In brief:

1) Annie and her sister Martha seek to escape the deranged men of the town, and they hope that police or military responders will help to defend/rescue them from the threat–even though these organizations also employ *gasp!* men. So, is it that all men are capable of these evils, except for those in uniform? (We know the answer to that.) Despite the best efforts of the progressive writing, this common theme still peeks through: Annie and Martha are hoping for a defender who will protect them by displaying courage and sacrifice (two traits classically associated with noble or honorable men [though not exclusively men]). What felt so broken about this plot was that there were no noble men. (Or at least, noble straight men, as the only example shown of a man resisting the meteor madness was a gay teenager. It almost seems as if acknowledging a need for noble heterosexual men would undercut the whole point of the episode. Maybe it would.)

And I want to be very clear: I’m not saying that these characteristics of nobility are exclusive to men–not at all. But the episode seems to imply that such men do not exist in the real world, that all men can be seen as potential threats, and that rings false, at least to me. But I’m not a woman, so perhaps the point is that this is true from a woman’s perspective (though that seems to categorize the female experience as monolithic).

2) The story seems to present toxic masculinity as a product of masculinity and not a product of sin. For this, I’d point to the gas station scene, in which Martha tries to gin up some reaction to the meteor rock but can’t do so because she doesn’t have the…testosterone, I guess? (Frankly, if they somehow linked the meteor rock to reactions with testosterone, that would have made more sense, but whatever.) The clear implication is that she isn’t reacting because she isn’t a man. As a Christian, I believe that instances of (actual) toxic masculinity are the product of a sinful nature–which is not limited to only one gender. The more interesting writing choice, I think, would have been for the meteor rock to affect both men AND women, if in different ways. This would have opened up an interesting exploration of the darkness of human nature as a whole, in a sci-fi/horror context, in which you could still address male sexual aggression and random acts of violence. But then again, that doesn’t seem to be the goal of the writers.

Like “The Wunderkind,” “Not All Men” was an episode I didn’t really enjoy–not because the subject matter bothered me, but because I thought the simplistic execution wasted the storytelling opportunity in order to score political/cultural points.

Episode 1.08 – “Point of Origin”

The Premise: Eve, an upper-class housewife in a picture-perfect suburb, suspects that something is not quite right with her idyllic life. After she is taken into custody by mysterious agents, this suspicion is proven correct as Eve’s entire reality is turned upside-down.

The Pay-off: This episode was another mixed-bag for me. The overarching theme of immigration is pretty on-the-nose, but I still liked several elements of this episode. Perhaps my issue is that I was hoping for a bit more to it. Granted, it’s an anthology show, so we can’t expect deep lore when there’s only a single episode to work with, but when you drop parallel-dimension travel on me, along with an agency that’s tasked with capturing the people who don’t belong in this world, I’m going to want to see how this progresses. Of course, these are all analogs for real-world groups and organizations, but this episode does just enough to make this scenario feel different and fresh. Ginnifer Goodwin gives a fantastic turn as Eve and drew my sympathy almost immediately. The actor playing her main nemesis brought the appropriate amount of cold, bureaucratic creepiness, and that beautiful machine they used with the “Eye of the Beholder” facemask was a glorious Easter egg.

The immigration commentary was laid on a little thick at parts (the “ladies who lunch” were basically all right-wing stereotypes in fancy outfits), and the part when Anna calls out Eve’s shallow interest in her life was a little heavy-handed but still worked for me. And then there was Jordan Peele’s tsk-tsking closing narration about how we’re “all immigrants.” Okay, y’all. We get it. Now let me get back to the science fiction, please.

I agree with Mark Ramsey’s comments on The Twilight Zone Podcast‘s discussion of this episode: part of the problem was that the people the showrunners wanted to zing with this social commentary probably won’t relate to the upper-crust, fancy-home-with-a-housekeeper type (though I would also suggest that those who fit the main character’s social set may also harbor such views, at least subconsciously, but would see themselves as champions of social causes).

I guess I don’t have much else to say about this one. As I said, it felt like an interesting teaser but left me wanting more.

Episode 1.09 – “The Blue Scorpion”

The Premise: An anthropology professor comes into possession of an allegedly cursed pistol when his father commits suicide with it. This strange and beautiful object begins to control the man’s life, with possibly deadly results.

The Pay-off: I loved this episode…right up until the closing narration. Chris O’Dowd (of “IT Crowd” fame) plays the lead character’s descent into obsession in this episode as a slow boil, and it really makes for a captivating performance. The episode is beautifully shot, and the set decorations and props are top notch. The eponymous gun is a beautiful piece, and it makes sense that it is such a point of fascination for so many. I thought the “JEFF” bullet was a nice touch and added a sense of dread as more and more Jeff’s enter the story. While the episode didn’t resolve the way I expected and was a bit anti-climactic after the growing tension of the episode, it wasn’t bad. Just a little underwhelming.

But then you get the closing narration, in which Peele talks about how…we love guns more than people? I mean, I guess you can make that connection (see the statement, “I love him more than I ever loved you” throughout), but it reeeeeeally feels like a stretch. Aside from the shooting-range scene, this whole episode could have centered around another “cursed object” and it still might have worked with a few narrative tweaks. After enjoying the episode as a well-done “cursed object” story, Peele’s moralizing at the end confused me. I thought, “Wait a minute–was that really what this was all about?”

I don’t know, Mr. Peele. Sometimes a pistol is just a pistol.

Episode 1.10 – “Blurryman”

The Premise: Sophie, a writer for the 2019 reboot of The Twilight Zone (!!!), finds herself in a strange and terrifying situation, as the wall between reality and fiction dissolves and she is stalked by a mysterious, shadowy figure.

The Pay-off: In a season of up-and-down episodes, the first series ends with one of the very best outings, both in terms of writing and execution. I absolutely loved the meta-references, and the reveal of the “Blurryman” having been present in earlier episodes of the season blew me away.

There were so many things to applaud in this episode. The acting was on-point. Zazie Beetz killed it as the writer Sophie, Jordan Peele played a slightly more arch version of himself, and the cameos were all delightful. (Truth be told, I’d love to see an actual TZ episode with Seth Rogen playing a lead role, but I think that’s ruined now!) The set design and use of previous locations and props were delightful (for example, including the bar from “The Wunderkind” was a great call-back). The creepiness of the Blurryman’s slow approach was pitch-perfect, even if the chase was perhaps a bit over-long. The only production weakness was a wonky bit of CGI on the Blurryman reveal, but I can forgive that. It’s high-end TV, but it’s still TV.

[SPOILER] And in the end, what’s chasing Sophie is the “ghost” of Rod Serling himself, because of course it is. This was pretty obvious early on (though that may be because Tom Elliot and Luke Own actually pointed out the Serling-like blurry figure in the background of the climax to “Replay,” so I was already a bit primed for it! But from a metaphorical standpoint, it’s just so perfect. This iteration of the show has been trying to both honor and differentiate itself from its legendary godfather. Reportedly, Serling’s widow was involved in the production of this episode as well, so there was a real care taken to honor the legacy with which they have been entrusted.

This episode, like “Replay,” had me literally sitting up at the edge of my seat, mouth agape and slightly smiling, muttering responses back to the TV throughout the episode. I was fully and thoroughly engaged and delighted. And in the end, when “Rod” takes Sophie through the doorway to another dimension, I just shook my head and smiled. Perfect ending. (Plus, I loved the fact that young Sophie’s touchpoint for The Twilight Zone was one of my all-time favorite episodes, “Time Enough at Last”!)

“Blurryman” was nearly perfect as a Twilight Zone episode and helped to successfully cap off a generally-good first season of the 2019 update.

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So what did I think of the season as a whole?

One of the most important exchanges of the season finale was early on, when Sophie and “Jordan” discuss what The Twilight Zone *should* be: is it just scary campfire stories, or a vehicle for social commentary? “Jordan” suggests it can be both. Sophie struggles with this idea until the Blurryman shows her that there is room for both: you shouldn’t lose the childlike wonder and delight of a scary campfire story, even as you are trying to point to larger issues.

This right here is the crux of the season, the series, and my sometimes-frustration with the 2019 version of the show. There were times throughout this first season when the balance of story and social commentary felt really off. A recent interview on The Twilight Zone Podcast with the show’s executive producer Win Rosenfeld indicated that he very intentionally wants to make political statements with the show–which is fine, in my view. However, political statements don’t guarantee good or even effective art.

There were episodes in Season 1 that handled social commentary in a way that felt natural to the story, such that the use of tropes and cliches were minimized and the narrative worked very well. There were other episodes that felt like the writer was assigned a message or moral, and tried to slap a story around that like papier-mache. Frankly, the stories that felt the least political seemed the most successful as Twilight Zone episodes, even if they didn’t move me particularly as a viewer.

I find myself going back to a word I’ve used repeatedly so far in these reviews: subtlety. When the message is surface-level and the characterizations are cliched, the show feels clunky like every other politically-driven scripted show on television. But when the story comes first, when the characters feel authentic, then even a plainly-moralizing episode still works, because that’s what the original series did, in my opinion. The most overtly-political episodes still worked because the writers/showrunners were storytellers first and pundits second. My favorite episode of the season was clearly a “message” episode, but it had enough layers and complexity that it rewarded more contemplation after viewing.

My hope is that Season 2 continues that trend, with strong narratives and characterization, so that the thematic takeaway isn’t front-and-center in each episode.

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Here’s my personal ranking of worst-to-best for this first season of the 2019 Twilight Zone reboot series:

10. “The Wunderkind”
9. “Not All Men”
8. “A. Traveller”
7. “Point of Origin”
6. “The Comedian”
5. “Six Degrees of Freedom”
4. “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet”
3. “The Blue Scorpion”
2. “Blurryman”
1. “Replay”

That’s all I’ve got for Season 1 of The Twilight Zone (2019)!

What did you think of the first season? What were your favorite epispodes? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Coming soon: I’ll review the first 5 episodes of Season 2! See you there!

Through Another Dimension: Considering “Twilight Zone 2019” (Part 2) – Season 1, Episodes 1-5

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Hello again, readers! I’m back with a commentary/analysis of Episodes 1-5 of The Twilight Zone (2019) Season 1!

Rather than giving a deep-dive review of each episode, I’m just going to provide some initial thoughts and observations. Frankly, there are better blogs and podcasts out there who can give you deeper analysis, especially since I’ve only watched each of these episodes 1 time. What you’ll find below are my thoughts and observations, with some influence and insight from Tom Elliot and friends on The Twilight Zone Podcast. (Quick caveat: I’ve tried to note where an idea came from them and not originally from me, but if I miss any, let me know. Sometimes it’s hard to remember if I’m coming up with an observation or repeating it!)

Be forewarned: While each “premise” synopsis below will be spoiler-free, my subsequent comments on each episode will not be. Scroll accordingly!

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Episode 1.01 – “The Comedian”

The Premise: A struggling comedian meets a stranger in a bar who gives him some career-altering advice. But the comic finds out that success comes at a price–and there are some things you can’t get back once you give them away.

The Payoff: Okay, starting with one more disclaimer–I watched this episode when it was offered as a sneak preview for the series, over a year ago, so my recollection of finer details will be a bit fuzzy. But overall I thought this story was a good start to the season. Samir, the struggling comic (played by Kumail Nanjiani), is offered a kind of Faustian bargain by a mysterious stranger (played by Tracy Morgan) and begins to find fame after years with little success. Thematically, the story examines what you give up when you put increasingly more of yourself out there for public consumption, as Samir literally begins to lose people and relationships once they become fodder for his stand-up routine. Looking back over this season, I have to admit this episode is one that feels more like classic Twilight Zone in terms of style: a main character with a fatal flaw receives his comeuppance. The foul language felt a bit heavy-handed, but I assumed at the time that was due to the setting (turns out, that’s just the norm for the new show). All in all, a nice creepy tale to kick things off.

Episode 1.02 – “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet”

The Premise: A journalist battleing PTSD boards a plane from Washington D.C. to Tel Aviv for an assignment, when he finds a strange mp3 player in the seat-back pocket. On it, he hears a podcast detailing the mysterious disappearance of his very own flight.

The Pay-off: This is the only episode of the season that is blatantly presented as a re-imagining of a classic episode (and one of the most famous) from the original series. Adam Scott plays Justin Sanderson with a slow-burn panic that keeps the tension high and makes his increasingly-erratic actions seem almost reasonable, at least at first. While we as the viewers can recognize how his actions appear more erratic and crazy over time, we’re allowed into his world enough to see the logic of his decisions. Throughout the episode, Adam tries to determine who will be responsible for the potential crash, with interludes from the podcast (read by the great Dan Carlin) providing a sort of real-time narration. As Tom and his guests noted in the TZP commentary, there is also a sort of Fight Club element with the character of “Joe,” whom Justin meets in the airport and talks to throughout the flight. I too found myself wondering if Joe was real or a figment of Justin’s stressed imagination. (Maybe because “Jack” first meets Tyler Durden on a plane in Fight Club?) This episode provided a fresh take on a familiar scenario for fans of the franchise and kept the tension high throughout. The coda at the end was unnecessary, but included a fun (and obvious) callback to the original episode and took is in a different direction (literally) than the previous iterations. All in all, great work.

Episode 1.03 – “Replay”

The Premise: On their way to freshman orientation, a mother and her son are menaced by a racist state trooper, just as she discovers her father’s old camcorder can reverse time. But can it prevent what feels inevitable?

The Payoff: This was the first episode of the season that wore its message squarely on its sleeve, but that didn’t prevent it from being a compelling story.

Nina Harrison is driving her son Dorian to school to study filmmaking, when they are harrassed by a shark-like state trooper, Officer Lasky. Thanks to the “magic” camcorder, Nina is able to rewind time and undo the escalating confrontation. However, no matter how Nina tries to change the timeline to avoid this threat, Lasky keeps finding them, with increasingly dangerous results. Ultimately, Nina realizes that the only way to alter the timeline is to take a detour and return to her childhood home to visit her estranged brother. He shepherds them through sewer tunnels and back alleys until they reach the university campus, but they can’t escape without one more encounter with Lasky and his men.

While it’s certainly possible for viewers to assume the message is “all cops are dangerous,” I think the theme is a bit more nuanced than that. While the presentation of the ever-present Lasky felt (to me) like something more fitting to the 60’s, setting it in the present emphasizes the idea that people of color still sometimes deal with discrimination and injustice from police. The inevitable encounters with Lasky represent racism as an ever-present threat that must be navigated but perhaps cannot be avoided. In the third act, Nina’s brother Neil acts as a sort of modern-day Harriet Tubman, at one point taking his family literally underground in their quest for Dorian to find “freedom” (via education). In the finale, they had to stand up to Lasky and his men, and they did so with a crowd of families at the university who all produced cellphones to record his behavior. While this episode premiered over a year ago, I watched it just weeks after George Floyd’s murder, and this moment felt particularly powerful and timely. All in all, this episode felt like the *right* way to lean hard into an issue in this format. (Later entries would not be so successful, in my mind.)

Episode 1.04 – “A. Traveller”

The Premise: Every Christmas Eve, the chief of police in a small Alaskan village “pardons” someone being held in their often-empty jail. This year, a mysterious stranger suddenly appears in one of the cells and asks to be the lucky recipient of the sheriff’s gesture.

The Pay-off: I gotta be honest–this was the first episode for me that didn’t quite “work”–at least on a script or story level. The technical elements and performances were excellent. The cinematography and editing were moody and ethereal, contrasting the dark, shadowy “underworld” of the cellblock with the tinny, red-lit Christmas party and the cool blue-black of the outside night sky. The acting was on-point, as it is throughout the entire first season, and the characters were interesting. It just felt like the story and theme were a bit muddy, as if the writers tried to pull together too many disparate threads. It was a story about hidden secrets being revealed, a fable about getting the thing you want and finding out it’s a trap, an allegory about manifest destiny and the erasure of indigenous culture (?). Honestly, the part that works best is the premise itself: a charming stranger in a suit and fedora appears suddenly in an underground prison cell of a snowy village on Christmas Eve, during the police station Christmas party. It had the intial markings of one of the sweeter episodes from the original series, like “Night of the Meek,” and could have taken a turn and become an interesting and heartwarming tale about “welcoming the stranger.” But rather than resolving with lessons learned amid the “magic of Christmas,” it devolves into a tale of people being awful to each other at the brink of an alien invasion. Throw in some cheap “hypocritical Christians” commentary, and it just turns a bit too bitter for my taste. I hear that this one improves with rewatches. Perhaps I’ll give it another try.

Episode 1.05 – “The Wunderkind”

The Premise: In the aftermath of an embarrassing campaign defeat, a young up-and-coming campaign manager finds a new candidate to champion in the next election cycle: a 10-year-old Youtube celebrity.

The Pay-off: I thought this was one of the worst episodes of the season, and not for the obvious reasons. Let’s just get this out of the way: it’s about Trump. The boy-president is an avatar for Trump. That alone wouldn’t be enough to turn me off or irritate me (I’m certainly not a fan of the man). But the reason why I think this episode roundly fails is because the premise strained credulity so painfully that the satire turned into farce–and the worst kind of all, a boring farce. While some of the performances were solid (John Cho was a perfect lead), and there were some insights about the mercenary nature of presidential politics that they could have played with a bit more, the idea of everyone kowtowing to a 10-year-old boy (including his parents?!?) was just too much to work with. Obviously, they want to recall “It’s a Good Life” from the original series, but that’s one of the most fantastical episodes of the classic run. Taking the exaggerated dynamic of that episode and wedging it into a realistic setting just doesn’t work. I get it–you’re using a petulant child to represent the fickle and capricious nature of the current administration. Good for you. Now show me something interesting.

If they had instead aged up the candidate, made him (or her?) a Youtube influencer more like the Paul brothers or a similar personality, it might have been more effective, because you can bring in other ideas like the manipulation of an audience or office for financial gain (also a pertinent critique). You even could have made the child-president concept work better if you didn’t have his parents on board at some point (and perhaps having the president “disappear” them ominously, which would have been a better allusion to the previous iteration). All in all, this episode sunk into a bog of “huh-huh baby Trump” caricature, and it could have been so much better. (To quote an old meme: “I’m not mad, I’m just…disappointed.”)

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Five Season 1 episodes down, five to go! Do you agree with my takes? Disagree? Did I miss something? Comment below!

Next up: Episodes 6-10 of The Twilight Zone (2019) Season 1!